In the initial phase when the government of Malaysia acted on the awareness program to deter people from smoking, the effect may have not been obvious. But these days, smokers have to do a lot more things in order to smoke in public. For instance, the grotesque images placed on the cigarette packs are not acceptable to many at the dining areas for its graphic nature; hence, smokers would now have to hide the packs in their pockets and not make them easily accessible as conveniently placed on the table as before.

Now, having nurtured that awareness and instilling the fear of the horrid outcome that resulted from smoking, I strongly urge the government to now take the next steps in educating the public thoroughly with its health campaigns. Surely the cigarette smokers should not be the only target for the assault, especially when they do not represent the entire national population (although may be accounting for a significant percentage). Let’s start looking into the everyday habitual sins and unhealthy consumption of greasy food, sugar contents, high salt and others.

As a suggestion, I propose a campaign for diabetic threats from sugar consumption. I believed there are bigger population samples as opposed to the national smokers’ statistics that are consuming high sugar contents on a daily basis. This is a frightening concern to the people of Malaysia (and the world too!); especially in some areas where most of the meals are highly doused with sugar itself… like the friendly communities in the Malaysia’s East Coast areas.

Let’s just look at one product, the most popular locally and globally. Its popularity had far breached the reach and capacity of what cigarette brands currently succeed itself with - Coca-Cola.

One of its effects from consumption: Diabetes.

Now, having establish that, lets look at some grotesque images that we can place on the cans to educate people of its health implications from continuous and unmeasured intake.

And then, have them posted on all cans, bottles and other production containment of the drink.

How’s that? One brilliant awareness campaign!

Let’s not stop there. There are other health concerns such as alcoholic drinks, salt, sugar, fast food, Aji-No-Moto, cooking oil and other items.

Let us fill the supermarkets with these awareness campaigns and paint all aisles with grotesque images of the fear that public need to have on consuming these products.

Let’s make the people of Malaysia (and the world) healthier!

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Let me bring things back to basics. I will not deal in anything beyond the necessary basic guidelines to those who are considering of being posted or are currently being posted out of your country of residence.

The key component is communication. If you cannot communicate with the locals, then you are nothing more than just a decoration in the office that does not contribute to anything. In ensuring clarity, comprehension and acceptance to an idea or opinion, two or more parties involved in that discussion must understand each other.

An interesting thing to note is that most Malaysians, based on their background of multi-ethnicity, are capable of multilingual capabilities and despite being in the cultural situation where one has to learn multiple languages, most Malaysians do undertake the initiative to learn an additional language to be more conversant and competitive in an international environment - English, and thus anywhere Malaysians go, despite our strong rooted favor or preference to use our own cultural language, we can still use English for the universal communication with other parties all around the world.

To summarize, the basic things before anything else considered for an international job opportunity is one must Learn English, Speak English, Write English and Read English, and most important is Understand English.

It’s a wonder at times, if most of the mistakes done by management or even in cases where technical situation is involved, could it be because they cannot understand the proposal papers? Or even the manual book?

This is not an advertorial for an English language course, just a basic and common knowledge that I need to impart to those who reads this blog.

And please… it’s English! Not Ingrish or Chinglish!

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Leadership books usually discuss about characteristics of good leadership. So, today I’ll talk about bad leaders. People in position of leadership usually think of themselves as good leaders. In reality, there are good leaders, just so, so leaders and bad leaders. Specifically, I’ll talk about a particular category of bad leaders, i.e. nasty leaders.

Nasty leaders subscribe to what I term as toilet paper leadership. The essence of toilet paper leadership is that people should be treated as toilet paper because they are to be used to either make the leader look good or to clean their *##@#. To understand toilet paper leadership I’ll contrast them with good leaders. I’ll refer to good leaders as passionate gardener leaders.

Toilet paper leaders are typically self-centered. They are opportunists and are mainly concerned with their own interest. They will use terms such as “common goals” and “mission” to disguise their intentions.

They rely on impression management to impress their superiors. But their subordinates usually can see that these leaders are not concerned about the organization. Passionate gardener leaders see themselves as servant leaders.

It is not that they are not concerned about personal gain. Like a good gardener, these leaders are concerned with the beauty of the garden.

These leaders see their goals as something to be attained by honestly working for the organization. They create winners out of everyone just like the gardener ensuring each tree turns into a beauty because they believe this is the only way to make the organization win and attain their own personal goals.

Passionate gardener leaders know that when the contribution of their subordinates is recognized, the credit will also naturally come to them. No need haggle over it.

To toilet paper leaders working smart is about taking advantage of people. When something good is done by their subordinates they will step in front to take the credit. When something bad happens they will put the subordinates on the firing line, especially when the bad things happened as a consequence of the leader’s action.

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May Allah forgive his sin and grant him jannah. Amen.